Reflections on the Fourth of July
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why I don't celebrate the 4th of July
I left the United States in 1985, so the 4th of July means little to me other than as the memory of a day whose approach I always anticipated with dread. I dreaded it because it was a celebration of freedoms that didn't exist and ideals that had never been lived up to. I always felt quite lonely on the 4th of July, because the people around me seemed to buy into it. While they cheered at the fireworks displays, I saw bombs killing innocent people. While they boasted of their freedoms, contrasting them with the tyranny of Communism, I saw us as a nation of willing slaves.
My disenchantment with the American Dream came after the fall of Saigon and the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam in 1975. Everybody seemed to believe that we were the good guys again and it was back to business as usual. One of the darlings of radical academia in the 60s, Herbert Marcuse, came up with a term, repressive desublimation, that describes the American people perfectly. I just stumbled across it here the other day. Basically, repressive desublimation is a psychological state in which people enjoy certain freedoms, such as "sexual liberation" and yet remain enslaved by other, more insidious social structures. This helped explain to Marcuse why the people of the United States didn't rise up enmasse in the 60s and overthrow the government. Today, it helps explain why the American people allowed the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to occur and why they imagined that by electing a "liberal" President, everything would be fixed and they could go back to believing they were the good guys yet again.
I've just finished reading a review of a book that looks like it might be worth reading. Called the Idea of America, by Bill Bonner and Pierre Lemieux, it includes some choice quotes from some of America's founding fathers, such as this one from Thomas Paine:
Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
The reviewer, Gary Gibson, goes on to say:
As stated before, America precedes the US, but from the founding of the political version of the nation, a dozen generations have sequentially sacrificed more liberty, more of the uniquely American independence for perceived expedience, convenience and security.
He then quotes author Bill Bonner: "People in the land of the free and the home of the brave will go along with almost anything. They are perfectly willing to give up almost every trace of freedom as long as they have security and economic comfort."
Since 9/11, Americans have felt their security is threatened. Who actually is responsible for 9/11 is beside the point: the incident was used as an excuse to further curtail Americans' freedoms. Since the "recession", America's economic comfort has been threatened. Perhaps, when the government fails to deliver the level of economic comfort needed to keep the people in a state of moral stupidity (repressive desublimation), they will wake up to the fact that they are enslaved and are passive participants in a "War on Terror" which is really a war of terror. Perhaps then, the 4th of July can really become something to celebrate.
The author's websites
- Sihanoukville Journal
- A Cookbook of Consciousness | I am large, I contain multitudes Walt Whitman
A Cookbook of Consciousness is devoted to exploring consciousness. It embraces all aspects of consciousness, from the mundane to the miraculous.
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I'm not quite sure what you mean in the first paragraph, but I agree with you about the reasons for the Vietnam war protests. With very few exceptions, campus protests were inspired by fear of the draft more than ideals.
I may have overstated the case when I wrote the Marcuse "describes the American people perfectly," but I still see the validity of his concept. Of course there's more to it than that.
My imaginary readers are those who continue to support Obama because of his image, since I know many of them. A short article about one aspect of the American psyche as I perceive it wasn't the appropriate place to go into the moral implications of the assassination of Osama bin Laden, America's involvement in Libya, etc., etc. The alternative media does a better job of that than I can anyway.
Robephiles Level 2 Commenter 10 months ago
The idea that certain contributions made to world politics, such as secular state government, is somehow negated by the inevitable corruption within any such system is a rather infantial form of idealism.
Marcuse doesn't really explain anything about the American psyche. While the Vietnam protests and counter culture are a huge part of how we view the 1960s and early 70s they were still made up of a minority. Vietnam protests were not about justice they were about the draft. Iraq has been less popular than Vietnam ever was but has not caused wide protest.
Furthermore, the actions of the state results in a kind of collective guilt of actions taken by that state but why this guilt should apply to persons who opposed such action and took steps to avoid such actions but were defeated by the majority within the political body is unclear. Even among those who bear some responsibility, guilt is shared and provides less of a burden. Reactions to other social problems, such as world poverty, is similar. One feels content not to act by the fact that his neighbor is doing no more than he is.